Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

On Saturday, November 5, at 06:27 local time, an electronic rocket from the US Rocket manufacturer's Rocket Laboratory (Rocket Lab) lifted off from the launch site in New Zealand, successfully putting the Swedish National Space Agency's scientific research satellite into orbit. However, due to the loss of telemetry data when the rocket returned to Earth, the company helicopter failed to capture the primary booster returning to Earth.

The mission, called "Cat and Mouse Game" (Catch Me If You Can), successfully put the Swedish satellite "Intermediate Aerosol Tomography and Spectroscopy" (MATS) into orbit. But the only drawback is that the rocket lab failed to capture the primary booster by helicopter as planned.

The Rocket Laboratory originally planned to use a helicopter to capture the primary booster in the air about 19 minutes after the launch of the electronic rocket to prevent the rocket from falling into the ocean and being eroded by sea water, thereby improving the reusability of the primary booster.

The electronic rocket is 18 meters high and is a small satellite launcher that has carried out 32 missions so far. The representative of the company said that the recovery and reuse of rocket primary boosters would help rocket laboratories increase launch speed and reduce costs.

Because the electronic rocket is too small to carry much fuel, it cannot make a vertical landing with its own thrust like SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket and heavy Falcon rocket. So the rocket lab decided to hook the parachute line above the booster with a helicopter when the primary booster landed.

The rocket laboratory has made a lot of progress in realizing the reusability of booster. In May, the company carried out a helicopter recovery mission called There And Back Again. A Sikorsky Smur92 helicopter successfully grabbed the first-stage booster of the electronic rocket. But a minute later, the helicopter seemed overwhelmed and was forced to release the primary booster from the cable and crash it into the Pacific Ocean.

The rocket lab finally pulled the rocket out of the sea and sent it back to shore with a tugboat. After analyzing the booster, the company refurbished and tested one of the nine Rutherford engines, and the results were satisfactory.

"this refurbished engine has passed all the rigorous acceptance tests we have set for rocket engines, including continuous ignition for 200 seconds and multiple restarts," the company representative added. The Rutherford engine has sufficient thrust and has "the same performance as the newly built Rutherford engine."

Still, Rocket Lab wants to keep recycled booster free from Shanghai water. As a result, the company planned to use Sikorsky helicopters to capture the booster during Saturday's cat-and-mouse mission, but it backfired.

Muriel Baker, communications manager at Rocket Lab, said: "due to the loss of telemetry data for the first stage of the rocket during re-entry, we were unable to bring the electronic rocket home cleanly this time."

She added: "in accordance with standard safety procedures, if this happens, we will allow the helicopter to return from the rocket recovery area, so we will not try to capture in the air today."but that's what the test program is all about: push the hardware and system to the limit and iterate."

Baker said the first-stage booster of the electronic rocket splashed down in the Pacific Ocean and the company planned to recycle it by ship.

In May this year, Rocket Lab successfully captured the primary booster with a helicopter for the first time during a launch mission codenamed There And Back Again. But a minute later, the helicopter seemed overwhelmed and was forced to release the primary booster from the cable and crash it into the Pacific Ocean. The transport ship then salvaged the rocket and sent it ashore.

Fortunately, the helicopter recovery failure did not affect the entire mission, and the MATS satellite successfully entered the intended orbit.

Rocket Lab said the MATS satellite "is the basis for the Swedish National Space Agency's science mission, which aims to investigate atmospheric waves and better understand how the earth's upper atmosphere interacts with surface winds and other weather patterns."

The MATS satellite was originally planned to use a Russian rocket, but the Swedish National Space Agency and the satellite's main contractor OHB finally ordered the electronic rocket.

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